Why is the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq? What is the effect on those societies? When, if ever, will the U.S. leave? As we prepare to protest 10 years of US war on Afghanistan, let's wrangle over a question a lot of returning soldiers say they can't answer: Why is the US there?

We in The World Can't Wait express our enthusiastic solidarity with the morally and physically courageous youth of Occupy Wall Street and all others now forming occupations in their cities. They have not resigned themselves to accepting the way the world is, but are boldly exposing the towering crimes and audacious lies of this nation’s financial and political elites. They are righteously demanding that it all end and in doing so enduring brutal attacks by police and the corporate media’s malign neglect.

In 1963 author, philosopher and professor Hannah Arendt published her famous book "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. The book was Arendt’s report on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi bureaucrat and war criminal largely responsible for implementing Hitler’s “final solution” that resulted in the systematic murder of millions of Jews.

In pointing out that the remarkable thing about Eichmann was that he was completely unremarkable, she drove home the point that the Nazi crimes were not committed by fanatics or sociopaths but by “ordinary people who accepted the premisies of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal”. Eichmann was a mild mannered civil servant with a wife and kids who epitomized the virtues of the German middle class. It was in his dispassionate face at trial that Arendt saw “the banality of evil”.

In the summer of 2005, people were starting to come out of their 6 month long depression over the outcome of the 2004 election. It was somewhat of a struggle to get people to stop blaming Bush voters, and grasp and grapple with the depravity of the Bush program, and the fact that two aggressive wars had been launched on the basis of lies.

Some of us already working to end the wars, torture, and in many other causes wrangled with the problem that, “fighting against each outrage and winning on important fronts — from immigrants rights to defending the right to due process, to defending abortion, evolution, against discrimination or to defend critical thinking on campus — is invaluable to making real change in a world that desperately needs it. But we are fighting each and every one of these battles on losing ground – ground that is rapidly disappearing under our feet.”

It’s difficult to pick out the most disturbing feature of the Obama administration’s expanding use of unmanned drones in its continuing war on “terror” in at least 5 countries. Would it be that the pilots, sitting in Texas or Nebraska, “watch” targets across the world for hours or days, and then go home for dinner with the kids? That their slang term for human beings they’ve hit is “squirter?” That the C.I.A. minders of one of the U.S. drone programs claim “no” civilians are killed? Or that there’s no oversight, no budget limit, no one in the upper levels of government who is even disturbed by this inhumanity?

Over the last few years, people have looked around at the movement for social justice and said, often, “Where are the youth?” This past week, in NYC they have been out on the streets, crackling with frustration, outrage, energy, and some hope and joy at just standing against what they can’t bear to be a part of.

Robert Gates is a war criminal. As Defense Secretary under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Robert Gates oversaw two official wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. He escalated and oversaw the bombing of several other countries, including Yemen and Pakistan. He was instrumental in the escalation of unmanned drone strikes and troop surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He also continued the use of torture and indefinite detention initiated under Donald Rumsfeld. Like the wars he executed, Robert gates is bipartisan in his criminality, the first Defense Secretary ever to hold that position under both a Democrat and a Republican administration and he personifies the consensus among the rulers for war without end.

On September 22nd he will be presented with the Liberty Award at the National Constitution Center in Center City, Philadelphia for his ‘contributions to expanding freedom.’

Join others at a candlelight vigil to protest the fundraising appearance of torturer and warmonger, George W. Bush. Do we really need to have the man who brought us pre-emptive strikes and launched an unjustified war that created widespread unrest in the Middle East held up as a great leader? Join others to stand up against those who torture.

New York City fans, be ready with your banners and sign on Tues 9/20/2011. George W. Bush will keynote the first summit of the Concordia Summit Group on fighting global extremism.

Bush will be joined by other former world leaders, security experts and heads of global corporations at the Sept. 20 meeting which aims "to strengthen the relationship between the public and private sectors to more effectively combat extremism on a global scale." Among the other speakers is John Negroponte, who is also on the Advisory Board of the Concordia Summit Group.

Event

Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney will be at the Authors Group event at Union League Club of Chicago on September 19th. Join World Can't Wait, the 8th Day Center for Justice and the Illinois Coalition Against Torture to protest.

Here in New York City, as the war criminals gathered, the protests continued.

7:30 am – About a dozen representatives of War Criminals Watch/World Can’t Wait, CodePink, Witness Against Torture, East Timor Action Network, NY War Resisters League and others gathered outside the Waldorf Astoria Hotel with banners, posters and leaflets while Henry Kissinger gave the breakfast keynote to business executives gathered at the Rodman & Renshaw Global Investment China Track Conference.

Over the past week, in actions small and large, as many of you reading this were rightly disgusted by the 9/11 propaganda machine in overdrive, the work of World Can't Wait has centered around the idea that American lives are NOT worth more than other people's lives.

In New York City, as war criminals make the rounds, still claiming 9/11 gives them license to murder and torture anyone they want, we were in the streets and at their forums, speaking the truth and denouncing their crimes, exposed to the whole world for years now.

We continue with the history of World Can't Wait this month with a fuller picture of the years of creative work to make resistance to government-institutionalized torture a reality throughout all of US society. Scroll down for the latest news of how this work continues with reports on the protests and actions of this past week, and help make it all possible by sustaining.

Thursday., Sept. 8, 11:00 am – A small number of protesters organized by World Can’t Wait and CodePink arrived outside the Russian Tea Room to announce to passersby on West 57th Street – via a banner, posters and leaflets –that the war criminal Donald Rumsfeld was in the vicinity.

This is a weekend to remember the victims of the global war OF Terror. With the 24/7 news cycle that ignores the harrowing crimes committed based on the tragedy of 9/11; many are left alienated if they do not agree with the official narrative. The past 10 years have brought death and destruction to Iraq and Afghanistan, the burial of the truth, and the demolition of whole cultures. Now is the time to connect with our friends and send a message to the world that these crimes are not in our names.

Let's re-commit to this community of resistance, join it by becoming a sustainer and let's spend the weekend talking with others about what the past 10 years have meant for the people of the world and the difference World Can't Wait makes.

For the month of September, as the eyes of the country are turned to 9/11 and people are asked to once again channel their grief into support for unending war, we are returning to the history of this movement - which has always, from the start, held that American lives are not more valuable than other human beings. Please join in helping make this message, this movement, and a better future possible, through sustaining World Can't Wait today.

In the summer of 2005, people were starting to come out of their 6 month long depression over the outcome of the 2004 election. It was somewhat of a struggle to get people to stop blaming Bush voters, and grasp and grapple with the depravity of the Bush program, and the fact that two aggressive wars had been launched on the basis of lies.

Just what is it we're being told to "never forget" as we remember the events of 10 years ago? Looking back at what the Bush regime did at the time:

CBS News reported that, on the afternoon of 9/11/01, Donald Rumsfeld ordered the military to draw up plans to attack Iraq. "Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

How about this, directed at any nation or person who would question means taken by the United States in response by George Bush, September 20, 2001: "Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

The people who brought us torture, indefinite detention, and trillion-dollar wars that have claimed countless Afghani, Iraqi and US lives should be indicted and prosecuted for their crimes, not honored as speakers and special guests at symposia, memorials and fancy dinners.

People of conscience must insist on accountability for the actions of U.S. officials.

Come to one or more and demonstrate with War Criminals Watch, World Can’t Wait, CodePink, Witness Against Torture and others at the following:

by Debra Sweet, National Director, World Can't Wait. I credit The World Can't Wait's founding work to "drive out the Bush regime" in the summer of 2005 with helping to change public perception of George W. Bush from "dumb" to "dangerous." As the former president will stand at the World Trade Center on Sunday memorializing those killed on 9/11/01, we should keep firmly in mind the truly massive crimes unleashed under the rubric of the "global war on terror."

Last Friday, I joined 53 others in getting hand-cuffed by Park Police after we sat in front of the White House for a few minutes in protest of the Keystone oil pipeline proposed to run from Alberta Canada down to Texas refineries. Before Hurricane Irene hit North Carolina a day later, it was hot and still in Washington, and sweaty sitting on the pavement in front of the White House. I realized that most often it’s been cold or rainy when we stood or laid down there in protest against U.S. wars and torture.

The UK Daily Telegraph had an alarming headline last week: "US Troops to Remain in Afghanistan Until 2004." The United States military and the subservient Karzai government are "negotiating" from their very different positions on the continuation of U.S. military presence there, long beyond the 2014 date that the Obama administration has most recently announced:

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